


The Way Home

by ambiguously



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: F/M, Post-Episode: s03e03 The Holocrons of Fate, Trauma, Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:15:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22617742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambiguously/pseuds/ambiguously
Summary: Hera is reeling from what happened with Maul, and Kanan lends an ear.
Relationships: Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla
Comments: 10
Kudos: 48
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	The Way Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Measured_Words](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Measured_Words/gifts).



No one was dead and that was important. The crew aboard the Hammerhead had been injured in Maul's attack, but they would recover. Their crew had nearly been killed by Maul's droids, but Kanan had arrived in time. They would all recover, too, in the ways they'd each learned over the years for good and bad. Sabine would withdraw, processing inside her own head until her emotions spilled out in fresh paint across her walls. Zeb would take out his frustrations on the next bucketheads they met, and Chopper would take his own out on everyone else. Ezra would be ready to talk about what had happened in a day or so. Now that the two of them were on good terms again, Kanan would make sure to give him the ear he would need.

It had been a long time since Kanan's go-to coping method had been crawling inside a bottle. On the bad days like this one, he had trouble remembering why he'd put that aside. As he stepped into the cockpit, the door sliding closed behind him, he breathed in the faintest trace of the light soap Hera liked, even past the overpowering aroma of the caf in his hands. Come to think of it, remembering the reason wasn't so hard.

"Thought you might need this," he said, bringing her cup to her. Liquid courage came in several forms, including the nice Spiran roast they kept back for special occasions.

"Thanks." Hera took a long drink. He missed watching her expressions as she encountered little delights. Her eyes would widen, and she'd wear a sweet, unguarded smile for a moment that told him he'd gotten it right. Kanan found his own chair and sat down, careful not to spill, and let himself imagine her reaction instead.

"How are you feeling?"

"Glad to be getting back to base. You?" Her voice changed, dropping into a quiet, almost guilty tone. "You should get checked out when we're back. Even a short time in vacuum is dangerous."

"I'll let the droids check me over, but I'm feeling much better."

"If he'd done that to anyone else, they'd be dead now."

"Good thing he did it to me, then." He heard her intake of breath. "Everyone's okay. He roughed up the team on the other ship, but they're going to be fine. We got away alive and unhurt. That's a good day, especially against someone who's tried to kill me twice. That's starting to feel kinda personal."

She didn't reply. He heard her take another drink of her caf before setting her cup aside. He'd hoped for a laugh, but he admitted his jokes were more likely to get groans at the best of times. Despite his attempt to frame this as a good day for her, Hera wasn't having with that.

He asked, "Do you want to talk about it?"

"What's to talk about? Like you said, we're all alive. Everyone's going to be fine." He wondered if she knew how tightly she bit her words off when she was angry, just as he wondered if she heard the tremor at the very back of her throat when she was scared. He hadn't needed to rely this hard on sounds before. One look at her face had been enough. He tried to picture her expression now.

"I'm sorry I was so late getting there. We should have come sooner."

"You almost died. Don't apologize that it took you a minute to get back from being spaced." Angry, yes, but not at him. He'd heard his particular anger before once or twice, and he hated it far more than when her ire was directed his way.

Kanan removed his mask and set it aside. He'd been hiding his wound but hiding from Hera never worked. Besides, even if he couldn't look into her eyes any more, he wanted her to see the truth in his. He turned his chair, and reached out, taking one of her hands from the controls. She didn't tug away, though he felt the thread of her pulse jumping even through their gloves. Angry and scared and more, all emotions Hera was bad at dealing with, and all eating her now.

"You know what happened wasn't your fault, right?"

He heard her shake her head. "He commandeered my ship. He took my family prisoner. I should have been able to stop him."

She thought that was true, too. Hera was one of a very rare few he'd met in his life after the purge who genuinely thought of Jedi and other Force-users as people first. She didn't consider Kanan or Ezra to be different from Sabine except for possessing an extra skill set. She hadn't considered Maul different from any other Zabrak warrior. He wasn't, though, and he would have defeated the others no matter what.

"There were three of us against him at Malachor, and I came away with this." He gestured at his face. "I'm calling today a win."

"He used us. He used me." Her voice had gone quiet. Her words were even more clipped. "He reached into my head and took the information he wanted about your holocron. He used our safety to manipulate the two of you into giving him everything he wanted. And I couldn't stop him."

Kanan fought back a shiver. He didn't know much about Dark Side powers, and he liked it that way. There were times he knew exactly what Hera was thinking, but that was because he knew her better than anyone else. The kind of mind-reading she was describing was a terrible, frightening violation Kanan could only imagine. No wonder she wasn't ready to look on the bright side.

Like he often did when he was faced with a huge problem, he thought back to his youth, asking himself what the wise old Masters in the Order would do in the situation. The issue there was Kanan wasn't a wise old Master and he had to guess based on his limited understanding of how they'd approached their own hurdles. The Jedi Temple had healers. Had he gone to them with his injury, they might have been able to restore his sight. Could Hera go to them after Maul's attack, they might have been able to ease the wounds in her mind and spirit. But the healers were gone along with the Temple and the rest of the Jedi. All Hera had here and now was Kanan.

"You are the strongest person I have ever met. I don't tell you often because you'll think I'm only trying to get into your pants again. But it's true."

"It's true you want to get into my pants again."

He went to protest, acknowledged that she was correct, and that if she could make a deadpan joke now, that boded well. "Yes, but setting that aside for the moment, I mean it. You're tougher than I am in ways I'm still discovering. If anyone could have stopped Maul from taking the ship, it's you. And you couldn't," he squeezed her hand as she shuddered, "because nobody could have. Ezra and I didn't defeat him. We barely survived him. It's not your fault."

He'd had to tell Ezra the same thing. Ezra always found an escape route, always pulled out a win, no matter what he was up against. Hera lived to be in control of every situation, a facet of her personality he admired in their work, and enjoyed immensely in their private times together. Loss of that control when outmatched by a far more capable enemy would rattle anyone to the bone.

There were days he was sure Hera could read his mind, no Dark Side powers needed. "And Vader?" She squeezed his hand in return even as Kanan wanted to recoil. But his own words came back to him.

"We barely survived him, too, and only because Ahsoka helped us get out of there."

"And what happened to her wasn't your fault."

A small, mean part of him wondered if Hera had set him up for this conversation. Kanan carried the guy he used to be with him, lurking inside his head, looking for an angle and a way out, waiting for the people he loved to abandon him or turn on him. But he'd gotten pretty good at shutting that guy up over the years. Hera wasn't exaggerating her trauma about what had happened. She was dealing with pain the way she always did: by reaching out to someone else who was hurt.

"No, it wasn't."

He felt a small measure of stress pass out of her. She would recover, and he supposed he'd recover, too. They'd keep surviving, as long as they had each other.

Hera turned back to the controls. Maybe she could tell he wanted to talk about feelings again, a topic she hated. More likely, she wanted to get back to Atollon. He rested in the copilot's chair next to her, enjoying her quiet company as he often did, and not drawing attention to how she still held his hand as she flew them towards home.


End file.
